Cowboys

I didn’t care one way or the other about Richard Prince's Spiritual America show, which received some less-than-totally-enthusiastic reviews when it was at the Guggenheim earlier this year. What did interest me was the story of Jim Krantz.

Krantz, a photographer who took at least one of the Marlboro pics appropriated by Prince - that’s it on the poster - claims to have been shocked, on dropping into the Guggenheim one day, to discover his photograph hanging there with Prince's name on it. Next thing you know, there he was in the New York Times: "I'm not a mean person, and I'm not a vindictive person. I just want some recognition, and I want some understanding."

I mention this now because I’ve got a cough I can’t seem to kick. And because it was guys like Krantz who, in my wasted youth, helped persuade me that cigarette smoking was about the coolest thing I could do next to getting drunk and abusing my horse.

I know we all have to earn a living. And I know sometimes the choices aren’t that great. But things have to be pretty dire to justify lending yourself to an enterprise as corrupt as the marketing of cigarettes. Maybe Krantz had a reason. Maybe he didn’t. But something about his demand for recognition leads me to believe he never even thought about it.